THE OTHER SIDE: When the protectors won’t protect

If you had told me five years ago that I would be one of 4,000 Americans watching hours of the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), I would have said you were crazy. But I watched the ACIP until I couldn’t.

I guess I wanted to answer the question USA Today had just recently asked:

As USA Today explains, it is a critically important question:

For more than 60 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has relied heavily on an independent expert panel to establish vaccine recommendations. But for the first time in its history, no one is serving on that advisory committee after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all its 17 sitting members June 9. Noel Brewer, a professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, had been on the panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), since July 2024 before the firings blindsided him. ‘It’s surprising … shocking,’ he said. ‘None of us had any idea that this was coming, so it came out of the blue and it was not something that’s ever been done before with ACIP.

Kennedy plans to replace the fired members with new people ‘currently under consideration,’ according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy’s decision marks a reversal from what a key Republican senator said the Trump Cabinet member had promised during his confirmation hearings this year. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said Kennedy had promised to maintain the advisory committee’s current composition.

‘If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,’ Cassidy said. In a June 9 post on X, Cassidy said he’s in contact with Kennedy to ensure ACIP won’t ‘be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines.’

Kennedy says ‘a clean sweep’ will ‘reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.’ Some who follow the Make America Healthy Again movement praise his decision, but former health officials and medical experts worry the firings will sow more distrust in the public health system and impede access to vaccines.

Well, Sen. Cassidy’s fear became America’s unfortunate reality in a matter of moments. The next day, on June 9, 2025, RFK Jr. announced he was replacing all 17 members of ACIP. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) press release declared:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today took a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), an advisory committee that makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Under the leadership of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the agency removed the 17 sitting members of the ACIP committee and will replace them with new members currently under consideration.

‘Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda; Secretary Kennedy said … ‘ACIP’s new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas. The entire world once looked to American health regulators for guidance, inspiration, scientific impartiality, and unimpeachable integrity. Public trust has eroded. Only through radical transparency and gold standard science, will we earn it back.’

Epidemiologist Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, M.P.H., Ph.D., author of the critically important newsletter “Your Local Epidemiologist,” wrote on June 10, 2025:

In an unprecedented and deeply alarming move, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every single member of the nation’s vaccine policy committee—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—and announced plans to handpick their replacements.

In other words, someone with an established track record of ignoring reality made the unilateral, ideological decision to gut one of the most trusted and effective pillars of America’s vaccine infrastructure. A system that helped eliminate smallpox, drastically reduce childhood diseases, safeguard schools, expand insurance coverage, and save millions of lives. A system that empowered 90% of Americans to protect their children and families confidently. It’s now becoming unrecognizable.

[Emphasis added.]

Dr. Jetelina prepared this helpful chart of the process that guides the journey of a vaccine from clinical trials to approval for distribution to us all:

Dr. Jetelina also created this chart that reveals the extensive research published by the panel members that RFK Jr. peremptorily fired, and the lack of similar work by his replacements:

I watched the ACIP meeting until I couldn’t bear watching the combined arrogance, contempt, and self-satisfied deceit of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s newly appointed anti-vaxers. And so, if I have sounded like a broken record these past months, it is because these developments in American public health are as important as they are horrifying. And I know—because I can see the eyes of my friends glaze over when I start talking about COVID, vaccines, masking, and measles—that many people just don’t want to think about it. It is like so many of the horrors of life in Truskmumpia these days.

But invariably, I think about the countless folks who are parents and want to be parents, are uncles and aunts and grandparents, and I think of the children I see so often see at Fuel and on the street. I believe we owe it them, as well as to all the other vulnerable folks, who are one virus away from getting sick to alert them of the danger.

So, as much as we don’t want to acknowledge this, the reality is that so many died from COVID and so many may die from the next epidemic. Here is the latest statistic from Our World in Data estimating the worldwide casualties of COVID:

It turns out I am so glad I watched the ACIP meeting because I came away with such respect for the competence the career professionals at the CDC brought to the task and the well-prepared and thorough reports they offered.

Based on the reception, I am guessing these reports were prepared for the previous panel who took their job seriously. This time around, the CDC staff found themselves advising a bunch of folks who were determined, no matter what the data revealed, to do away with as many vaccines as possible. And their questions and challenges reeked of their anti-vax political agenda.

The New York Times put it this way:

Just minutes into the first meeting of new scientific advisers appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it was clear that the skeptical panelists intended to upend longstanding vaccine recommendations in the United States, particularly those pertaining to children. The meeting on Wednesday marked a remarkable and fraught moment in public health. Mr. Kennedy has replaced the gatekeepers of immunization policy in the United States, mostly scientists with deep expertise, with people who often have been critical of vaccine safety and efficacy …

The panel … advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy. Its determinations have a powerful impact. Insurance companies and government programs like Medicaid are required to cover immunizations that the C.D.C. recommends, and states base their school mandates on the agency’s guidance. Martin Kulldorff, formerly a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the committee’s chair, began the meeting by inviting people to share their criticism of vaccines and chastising the media for fanning the ‘flames of vaccine hesitancy’ by labeling some new panelists as anti-vaccine.

Dr. Robert Malone, a chair of the panel, has said he considers the label ‘anti-vaxxer’ to be ‘high praise. At the meeting, Dr. Kulldorff noted that he had been fired from Harvard for refusing to get a Covid-19 shot because he ‘already had immunity’ from infections. Dr. Kulldorff added that the panel would evaluate the effect of all the shots given to children and adolescents, including a vaccine for hepatitis B given at birth that is credited with nearly eliminating maternal transmission of that disease. ‘In addition to studying and evaluating individual vaccines, it’s important to evaluate the cumulative effect of a recommended vaccine schedule,’ he said.

[Emphasis added.]

As The Times points out, despite Dr. Kulldorff’s insinuations, the CDC has already determined the great success of vaccinating children for hepatitis B:

Most recently, Katelyn Jetelina and several colleagues, writing as The Evidence Collective, offered their commentary on the ACIP hearings:

Two key topics were covered in depth: COVID-19 and RSV, focusing on ongoing disease burden, vaccine safety, and effectiveness. The presentations were incredibly thorough and professionally prepared by CDC employees …Unfortunately, the meeting was also flooded with falsehoods – we counted at least 28 … debunking takes far more effort than spreading falsehoods. But we’re working quickly to surface and counter these in real time …

Martin Kulldorff has been appointed as ACIP Chair, despite typically requiring at least one year of committee service before chairing. The introduction slide incorrectly lists him as having an MP degree, which he does not possess. During the opening, he:

• • • Claimed he was fired from Harvard Medical School for refusing COVIP-19 vaccination after infection
    • Asserted he was ‘the most pro-vaccine scientist in the country’ for disagreeing with the decision and feels mischaracterized by the media
    • Portrayed himself as having no conflicts of interest
    • Criticized the 10-day Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause as inappropriate, claiming it may have caused deaths
    • Proposed establishing a CDC working group to examine whether children receive ‘too many vaccines’ and the potential cumulative harms, and a committee to review old vaccines in use for a long time …
    • Reality: Current vaccine schedules actually contain fewer antigens than historical schedules, despite preventing more diseases. Depending on the specific vaccine formulations, some will also give fewer adjuvants. The effects of interaction between vaccines are already well-documented and managed through established guidelines …

MMR vs MMRV

• • • Kulldorff incorrectly claimed there is an ‘equal recommendation’ for MMR vs MMRV for the first dose.
    • Reality: MMR + separate varicella vaccine is preferred for the first dose due to a slightly higher risk of febrile seizures with MMRV. Either option may be used for the first dose, particularly if parents request MMRV. This preference does not apply to the second dose.

Hepatitis B Birth Dose

• • • • Kulldorff recycled anti-vaccine talking points about birth dose hepatitis B vaccination
      • Portraying this as only needed for ‘high-risk’ populations (injection drug users, people with multiple sexual partners) is misleading and dangerous.
      • This framing ignores vertical transmission risks (when a baby gets infected from their mother), and population-level disease burden
      • Reality:
      • The US has millions of chronically infected hepatitis B carriers
      • Early-life infection leads to much higher rates of chronic infection, liver cirrhosis, and cancer
      • Screening is imperfect in both the potential for false negative results to get it as part of prenatal care
      • Birth dose vaccination is a proven low-risk intervention with substantial benefits

Conflicts of Interest

• • • • One member dropped out (Ross) because he wasn’t willing to sell his stocks
      • Both Kulldorff and Malone have served as paid expert witnesses against Merck in civil litigation. They did not disclose this.
      • No one disclosed ties to the anti-vaccine organization NVIC as a conflict of interest (Pebsworth)

COVID-19 Session …

Kulldorff asked about the ‘gold standard double blind controls’ for COVID-19 boosters. Also commented on test-negative designs not reflecting the general population in their control group.

• • • Reality: It’s unethical to run randomized placebo-controlled trials of updated COVID-19 vaccines because that would mean withholding known protection from participants. It’s also not feasible to require such trials after licensing due to their lengthy timelines. Test-negative design (TND) studies are much faster and more cost-effective than randomized controlled trials while providing robust data. TND uses population-based controls—people who sought care for the same symptoms at the same healthcare facilities as cases, making them highly representative. Additionally, the CDC conducts cohort studies using databases such as Medicare claims data, which have been presented at previous ACIP meetings and show similar results.

Meissner’s ‘with vs. for’ COVID questions include hospitalization rates. He says it refers to a hospitalized person who has a positive PCR assay for COVID, rather than meaning they are hospitalized because of COVID, but rather they are hospitalized with COVID.

• • • Reality: A recent paper looked at these trends in adults, found 86% of hospitalizations from 2022/23 were defined as COVID-attributable

Meissner asked about rare disease rates: ‘Looking at recent CDC data in kids 0-4, it’s less than 1 hospitalization per 100,000 children. Even under 6 months of age, it’s 1.6 per100,000. Is that correct? The point is, this is a VERY RARE illness in young children and adults.’

• • • Reality: Cumulative numbers still show a significant burden among all age groups, which is still cause for concern. However, though the crude incidence rates are low, there still exist safe and effective interventions to prevent COVID-19, and the numbers Meissner cites take into account incidence in the general population, including those not infected with COVID-19 …

Covid Discussion: Scientific Inaccuracies

Retsef Levi said vaccines ‘randomly seed the entire body with spike protein that persists everywhere,’ which may require novel methods to assess safety.

• • • Reality: Vaccines overwhelmingly remain confined to the injection site. A small portion entering the circulation goes primarily to the liver for degradation. Spike protein persistence in lymph nodes is a normal part of the immune response and is beneficial for generating protective immunity because it lets you test new antibodies to select for the ones that bind the best. Lipid nanoparticles are preferentially taken up by professional antigen-presenting cells, not randomly distributed. It is not at all clear why, even if Levi’s misperceptions were accurate, they would require novel methods to assess safety.

Retsef Levi pointed out that most people who are hospitalized are vaccinated and that vaccination may make them more vulnerable.

• • • Reality: There is no credible evidence to support that a vaccination makes someone more susceptible to infections or a coherent theoretical basis for it. Hospitalized individuals are mainly elderly and, therefore, we would not expect them to have the same comorbidities and risks as the general population …

Robert Malone’s Scientific Falsehoods

‘Hot lots; conspiracy theory: Claims certain vaccine lots cause more adverse events

• • • Reality: This has been specifically examined and debunked by German and other regulatory agencies …

Myocarditis Discussion

Meissner’s concerns: Notes persistent imaging abnormalities (late gadolinium enhancement) following vaccine myocarditis may indicate scar tissue formation, potential arrhythmia risk, and raise subclinical myocarditis concerns

• • • Reality: COVID-19 vaccination reduces myocarditis risk from SARS-CoV-2 infection. SARS-CoV-2 poses a much greater myocarditis risk than vaccines for nearly all demographics. Newer analyses have also shown that rates of vaccine-associated myocarditis have dropped to almost non-existent now …

[Emphasis added.]

I appreciate that this is a bit technical, but the myths circulating on social media (that several vaccines, including those for COVID, for measles, hepatitis B, and RSV, are more dangerous than the diseases they are meant to combat) just do not stand up to scrutiny. And the CDC personnel did a masterful job in presenting the most thorough and up-to-date data to the ACIP. Here are a few of the slides I found most illuminating:

Yes, we were repeatedly told that it was the elderly who were most vulnerable to hospitalization and were constantly reassured that the young were safe. And because of that, there was no real need to vaccinate the young. But here is another slide:

In fact, despite what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Robert Kulldorf, the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, said, the children who found themselves hospitalized with COVID-19 associated illness were, in fact, extremely vulnerable to COVID and presented with no obvious medical difficulties:

It is so very sad that folks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the people he has now empowered at HHS, the CDC, and ACIP have spread such a persistent fog of misinformation across the country. I am sure you have experienced it: people you know insisting that vaccines cause autism, that the COVID shots were responsible for young people coming down with myocarditis, that parents can best protect their kids by refusing to vaccinate them.

Those who choose not to protect themselves with the COVID vaccine pay a price:

Though she is across the country, I find it comforting to imagine Katelyn Jetelina as “My Local Epidemiologist.” Here is her perspective on the ACIP meeting:

It’s easy to get caught up in the absurdity, and to be clear, much of it was absurd. But/and the respiratory virus season is just around the corner, and that matters more as lives are at stake. The CDC’s presentations were strong, and the science behind them was solid. I’m confident that, despite the chaos, the data shared wasn’t influenced by RFK Jr. or this new committee. So I wanted to walk you through that science—what we know, what protection options will be available this fall, and what questions remain. Because at the end of the day, Americans deserve to be informed and empowered to protect themselves and their communities …

COVID-19 remains a serious health threat to Americans and a huge burden on healthcare systems. Last year, hospitalizations for Covid were similar to flu (and the flu season was the worst we’ve seen in past 15 years). Infants and older adults continue to be most affected. This is why it’s so important for pregnant women to get vaccinated. (Infants cannot get the vaccine until they are at least 6 months old, when maternal antibodies wane and their immune system is more mature.)

[Emphasis added.]

Here is a slide from the ACIP presentation:

Jetelina continues:

Last winter’s COVID-19 vaccines provided 30-40% additional protection against urgent care visits, regardless of age, compared to people who did not get the Covid vaccine, and 40-70% additional protection against hospitalizations and ICU stays. Interestingly, protection isn’t waning as quickly nowadays, remaining stable up to the study period (180 days). COVID-19 vaccines also continue to be safe based on the many systems the U.S. federal government has in place.

Myocarditis—inflammation of the heart—is no longer a safety signal like it was for the first two shots of mRNA. Among adolescent boys who did get myocarditis from the first two doses of the vaccine, 91% have fully recovered.

I must say, I was most surprised by the data about the incidence and severity of influenza. Over the years, I had had my share of seasonal flu, but I was unaware of the reality that cases of influenza had been rising significantly:

And the forecast for this upcoming season is quite worrisome:

Quite frankly, I wasn’t really aware of the consequences of getting a bad case of flu:

There are many moments in the search for truth when you have to confront your own amazement. It is a bit like therapy was for me—those shocking times when my own stupidity and my own blindness were revealed and denial no longer worked, reality incontrovertible. I can remember the first time I listened to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Joe Rogan’s podcast and decided to fact-check for myself. The moment I carefully read a couple of the studies he cited and saw how he had either misinterpreted their findings or deliberately lied about them. Ever since, I have marveled at how many folks, even here in the Berkshires, repeat what is clearly propaganda about vaccines without ever going back to the original research.

And so, at the end of the day, my heartfelt thanks go out to the brave folks at the CDC who chose to offer the facts knowing quite well that their new bosses were bringing ideology and bias to the process.

Here is yet more evidence that the cumulative effects of anti-vax misinformation is sending folks to the hospital:

Here is The New York Times’ take on the CDC’s latest data about our spreading measles outbreak:

The Times writes, “Experts worry that if vaccination rates do not improve, deadly outbreaks will become the new normal.”

Finally, a last look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda. He added Lynn Redwood, past president of the nonprofit anti-vax organization he founded, Children’s Health Defense, to the ACIP schedule. He asked that she present a paper on the dangers of thimerosal, a preservative once extensively used in some vaccines. For years, Children’s Health pointed to thimerosal—their smoking-gun cause of autism—as evidence of the incompetence of the CDC and prominent immunologists.

Katelyn Jetelina writes of Redwood’s presentation:

But the big point of discussion during the ACIP flu section was thimerosal …. In short, it absolutely flooded the zone with cherry-picked data out of context. It also had fake citations, likely due to the use of AI. External presentations, like this one, typically need to be fact-checked by CDC. Typically, this occurs days or weeks in advance of ACIP meetings. It didn’t happen this time.

There was one sane person on the committee who said, ‘I don’t know where to start’ with all the falsehoods presented. And followed up by saying ‘there’s no scientific evidence that shows the harm of thimerosal.’ Here are the facts:

• • • Thimerosal is an ethylmercury-based preservative that keeps vaccines safe from bacterial contamination.
    • It was largely removed in vaccines in United States in 1999 as a precaution, even though no harm was ever demonstrated.
    • At the time, there was no specific data on ethylmercury’s toxicity, so safety assessments conservatively applied the limits of methylmercury (the toxic form of mercury found in fish that many of us are familiar with). Using those stricter benchmarks, cumulative exposure from the full childhood schedule slightly exceeded what was considered safe for prenatal methylmercury exposure.
    • Since then, numerous studies have demonstrated that ethylmercury is metabolized differently and is safe at the levels used in vaccines.
    • In the United States, thimerosal is only found in multidose flu vaccines, and trace amounts are found in TDVax, a tetanus and diphtheria vaccine for people aged seven and older.
    • Thimerosal is still used in other parts of the world as a vaccine preservative.
    • Thimerosal and the use of multiple vaccines are incredibly important for pandemic preparedness.

Votes: The majority of ACIP members voted to remove flu shots containing thimerosal. This means about 4–7% of the flu vaccine supply won’t be used. This isn’t a huge deal, but it may ripple doubt globally, which would have a significant impact because many global vaccines still contain thimerosal. And the groundwork here is what’s most concerning for future vaccines. I agree.

Facts matter. Data matters. As Reuters detailed in preparation for the ACIP meeting, CDC researchers posted materials about thimerosal-containing vaccines:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a report on Tuesday that said evidence does not support a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders, ahead of a two-day meeting of an advisory panel later this week.

The report was posted on the agency’s website on Tuesday, along with some presentations and the final agenda of the meeting, which is scheduled for June 25 and 26 … According to the CDC report, 96% of all influenza vaccines in the U.S. were thimerosal free during the 2024-25 flu season. It also added that the number of pregnant women receiving a thimerosal-containing flu vaccine has decreased over time, with only 0.3% of doses given in 2024 containing thimerosal.

That report seems to have disappeared from the CDC website. It appears Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won’t tell you about the previous position the CDC took about thimerosal. But here is a slide of its conclusion:

In so many ways, these are perilous times. And the usual ways we protect ourselves from the abuse of power have failed us. Mostly recently, the Supreme Court has chosen to side with those committed to deconstruct the safety net, and determined to curtail the many ways government serves its people. Chosen time and again to buttress what some call the unitary executive but which I imagine the Founders would have recognized as tyranny.

This dangerous shift is so readily apparent when it comes to our public health. And the question I have for you is quite simple: What do you do when the protectors won’t protect?